Kayla McArthur

Name: Kayla McArthur

Gender: Female

Age: 18

Grade: Senior

School: Bayview Secondary School

Hobbies and Interests: Kayla has a passing interest in social interactions and math, and a much deeper interest in writing and science.

Appearance: Kayla is a normal looking girl. Like 90% of girls her age, she looks nice, but not at all like a supermodel. She has green eyes and red hair, marking her Irish heritage for all to see. She also has very pale skin. She burns very quickly in the sun, sometimes in only a few minutes. She keeps her hair just long enough so that it covers her neck and a little onto her chest, and she usually wears it pushed back with a hair band or tied back with a ponytail holder. Her eyes, as mentioned before, are green, and they are set mildly close together. Her nose is small and slightly crooked, having healed poorly from an early childhood break. Her ears are small. Her lips are a little pale, and also happen to be very thin. Her neck is a little short, but not stubby. The line of her cheekbone is soft and gently follows a pleasing curve. Unfortunately, her natural beauty is marred slightly by acne, mostly on her nose and forehead.

Kayla is not tall, but not short. While she would not make the basketball team, she’s still a respectable 5’7” tall. Her weight tends to vary slightly, as she will often absentmindedly forget to eat for as long as three days at a time. Still, it falls into a comfortable range from 120 to 130, a little low for her height. Unfortunately for her self-image, she has very small breasts, coming in at about a mid-A cup. Her figure is almost boyish, being very flat and straight. She has a bit of a butt, but it’s not very obvious. She feels very self-conscious about it, as all of her various foster sisters have been well-endowed in the past. Her wrists are marked with old faded scars from a darker time in her life. She doesn’t have a lot of muscle on her, preferring the lifting of dictionaries to the lifting of weights, and pencil pushing to push-ups. Still, she does try to keep herself in partially decent shape.

Kayla’s favorite color is deep purple, which is reflected in what she wears. At this time of year, she typically wears a purple t-shirt with blue jeans, except on Wednesday when she wears a purple blouse with a long skirt. Her hair band is always purple, and she usually has earrings featuring a violet in her ears.

Biography: Kayla was born to a small family in New York. Her mother was in failing health and perished during childbirth. Her father couldn’t take time out of his life to raise a daughter, and so passed her on to Social Services. Kayla has been facing the instability and fear present in the foster Care systems for most of her life. She’s been one of the unfortunate ones who bounced between several dozen households. In fact, before her fifteenth birthday, the longest she’d stuck around at a foster family’s house was nearly two years, before she had a falling out with the family. The story of her broken nose came from the fourth foster family she had stayed with. The family’s oldest boy, who was nearly twenty, had come home drunk. When Kayla threatened to tell his parents, the boy had struck her, breaking her nose. And that had been the end of that stay. The wrist cutting had started around age eleven, due to the constant family jumping. Obviously, all this ping-pong play made it difficult for Kayla to form relationships with people.

Of course, all things good and bad must end. And so did Kayla’s harsh life. Three days after she turned fifteen, she was adopted by a loving family from Minnesota. After bidding farewell to the other foster care children, she was taken halfway across the country to St. Paul, Minnesota. She warmed up to the new family very quickly, as they had no children of their own and were generally amiable people. Her “mother” was a bit strict, and her “father” a bit eccentric, but both were doting and loving people. She warmed up to the St. Paul area as well, emerging from her carefully formed shell with ease. The scars of her Foster time still remained, both mentally and physically, but she began to form friendships with other students. She never anchored herself to one group, but was friendly to nearly everybody.

In school across her foster life, Kayla had always been a bit of an anomaly. She always scored highly in standardized tests and exams, but kept her grade at a steady C up until high school. Upon entering High School, she had a brief stint with a B-average Freshman year before pushing herself harder to get an A-average. She managed this by taking easy classes so that she could still be lazy throughout.

Recently, she started a small blog to share her writing ability. She also published a short story in a local magazine recently, to her delight. She is also a member of a high level writing class at school. At school, she tends to be an outsider, due to her previously mentioned social issues.

Kayla has a few strong phobias. Her strongest is a fear of abandonment, which runs so deep in her that it is impossible to banish entirely. Even after three years with her “Mom and Dad,” she still is afraid to make them angry at her in fear that she’ll again be kicked to the curb. This fear also prevented her from dating anybody at school. The anticipation that a break-up could happen would have crippled her mentally and emotionally. She has recently been going to therapy to deal with this phobia. She also has claustrophobia, brought on by a particularly abusive foster mother whose response to the slightest infraction was to lock the offending child in the closet for up to ten hours. Even now, the smell of slightly damp fur coats and moth balls could set Kayla’s heart racing. Her final major phobia comes from no traumatic source. She is simply afraid of heights with no rational explanation. She never fell out of a tree or down the stairs. She just happens to be afraid of heights.

Kayla tends toward absentmindedness. If she enjoys a class and has interest in it, it typically moves too slowly for her rate of information devouring. If she has no interest in it, she pays only enough attention to understand the topic and do the homework. All the boredom causes her to daydream and forget things. Still, she manages to get A’s in every class, as stated.

Kayla’s personality is typically slightly bubbly, although she has her good days along with her bad. She tends to float between groups, never really anchoring herself, a mirror of her early childhood life and even her recent teenage years. Despite her unstable family life, she has managed to avoid at least one stereotype and has avoided drug use and alcohol. She has no physical defects to speak of, except for a tendency for mild heartburn.

Advantages: Besides her strong mentality, Kayla is also no stranger to adverse conditions, which is a blessing and a curse, as she could flashback to bad times if things got really bad, but she is able to deal with high stress at the same time.

Disadvantages: Kayla is, as stated, afraid of abandonment, which could cause problems if she needs to form a group. She also has occasional flashbacks to the bad times in her life, during which she underwent sometimes-serious abuse. The adverse conditions during SOTF could cause her to flash back to these times. Her phobia and fears have adverse effects on her life normally, and will likely have a heightened effect in a high-stress occasion like SOTF. Finally, while fit, Kayla has neither the strength nor the stamina of the athletes.

Designated Number: Female student no. 053

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Designated Weapon: Kampilan

Conclusion: Poor little Kayla. I'm hoping that G53 will actually get some use out of that neat little sword she received. Unfortunately, I can just picture her cowering in fear somewhere... What a waste. Please don't disappointment me, G53! I get so terribly bored with all the disappointment I've faced with students in Survival of the Fittest.

'The above biography is as written by Serpentis.Deteramot. No edits or alterations to the author's original work have been made.'

Evaluations
Handled by: Serpentis.Deteramot, SOTF Help

Kills: None

Killed By: Sebastian Decartes

Collected Weapons: Kampilan (assigned weapon, to Jason Harris)

Allies: Celeste Beaumont

Enemies: Sebastian Decartes

Mid-game Evaluation: Kayla awoke on the island and briefly panicked upon realizing she and her classmates had been abducted for SOTF. After pulling herself together, she located her daypack and assigned weapon, along with a booklet detailing proper care and cleaning of said weapon. She gathered her things and made for a clearing, where she found Brock Mason and Steven Hunt. Celeste Beaumont arrived right behind her, and the two boys were not particularly welcoming. She and Celeste suggested forming a group with Brock and Steven, an idea Brock met with derision, and Steven wasn't much more enthusiastic. Kayla countered Brock's hostility to the idea by pointing out that she wasn't looking for someone to hide behind, but rather a mutually beneficial team comprised of people watching each others' backs. Brock relented enough to allow the girls to accompany him on his search for Hilary, but Kayla decided to take her chances on her own rather than with such an unenthusiastic companion, and she and Celeste parted company from Steven and Brock.

Kayla and Celeste wandered through the woods, passing by a group of people. This group included Jackie Myriescreaming in rage at Michael Raynor and Sofia Martelli, but they didn't stop to see what was going on. After a while they arrived at the sawmill, and Celeste stopped to rest, fatigue setting in not in small part due to the giant sledgehammer she was hauling with her. Kayla agreed to stop, and Celeste attempted to introduce some topics of conversation as small talk to keep alert, including whether Kayla had any boyfriends (no) and how she felt about academics (did well, but nothing that helps here in SOTF). Kayla segued into speculation about how ill-prepared she was for the situation and what dying was like. Celeste replied that if Kayla died first, she would write a poem in her honor. Celeste then heard a sound from nearby, followed shortly by a gunshot. Roman Jacksonhad been shot, and in varying states of fright, Kayla and Celeste ran away, the latter abandoning her sledgehammer.

In their panicky departure from the sawmill, Kayla and Celeste became separated upon reaching the tunnels. Kayla had twisted her ankle during her flight, and although she could hear someone calling down one of the tunnels, Kayla decided to go it alone, wandering away in the dark. This tactical decision resulted in bruises and scrapes, but she was quite fearful of who might be out there at this point. Upon ascertaining she was alone, Kayla took a nap. When she awoke, she heard Celeste talking to someone, Meredith Hemmings (aka Pandora Black). She found Celeste negotiating with Meredith to lead them to an exit. Unwilling to trust Meredith, Kayla decided to make her own way out of the tunnels, leaving both Celeste and Meredith behind.

Her exit from the tunnels found her on the mountain, where she took a bad fall. This mishap added to her already numerous cuts and bruises. Regretting having abandoned Celeste, she cobbled together a plan of action to gather a group to go back for the other girl. Having landed outside the infirmary, she called into the building to try to find someone else. Felicia Carmichael called out in response, telling Kayla to show her hands to verify she wasn't carrying a weapon with hostile intent. Kayla put her sword on the ground. The door opened, and Kayla found herself looking at the business end of a gun. As Felicia verified with those inside the infirmary that they were willing to have Kayla join them, Sebastian Decartes ambushed her, hitting her in the neck with a rock and detonating her collar in the process.

Post-Game Evaluation: Kayla gave us all an object lesson in why blocking a blow with your collar is an exceedingly bad idea. Some people just aren't cut out to survive, and Kayla just ran out of room to run away. At least her sword was more active than she was in the end...

Memorable Quotes: "I... I really don't want to die. I wonder, does it hurt? Is it quick, like a candle being blown out, or is the suffering prolonged, each moment stretching away into eternity? A melancholy subject, but...sorry. Not great for morale when one of us gets all poetic about death, I suppose." --Kayla talking to Celeste about death

Threads
Below is a list of threads that contain Kayla, in chronological order.

Pre-Game:


 * Crunch Time
 * Poker Night!

V4:
 * Words Can't Bring Me Down
 * When the Bite Just Isn't Sharp Enough
 * Living In The Aftermath
 * The Gods Hate Us
 * Can't I Just Die A Disney Death?

Your Thoughts
''Whether you were a fellow handler in SOTF or just an avid reader of the site, we'd like to know what you thought about Kayla McArthur. What did you like, or dislike, about the character? Let us know here!''
 * Kayla was Dete's character who made the least impression on me, really. A big part of that was that she spent most of the game moving around with Celeste, meeting people but not really interacting with them, and avoiding trouble. She spent ages lost in the tunnels, and while the interactions there with Meredith gave her a bit more to do, Kayla actually fell by the wayside as Celeste took the lead. Then she went inactive and got killed in a pretty perfunctory fashion. She was basically average in most ways, which isn't awful, but in a version as bloated as V4 it means she's unlikely to be remembered much. - MurderWeasel